Socrates is so extraordinary philosopher, that the details of the life and biography as if reveal to us the mystery of his teachings.Even its origin in a sense symbolic.As the son of a mason and a midwife Athenian thinker seemed to be continued the work of obstetrics, which is engaged by his mother, but in the spiritual culture.No wonder the Socratic method is called maevtiki (in Greek - "the art of midwife").The first in the history of the Athenian philosopher Socrates was ugly, but extremely attracted people;from an early age I had a sensual nature but overcame it.According to legend, the philosopher endured his quarrelsome wife Xanthippe in order to learn humility.His life was in pretty rough for the Athenian state era - the period of the Peloponnesian War.
Socratic method was described to them in public in the year 399 BC, in the presence of many students.First of all, it is quite sharply opposed the rhetoric of the Sophists, The thesis that there is no truth, there are only differences of opinion and claims that everything is relative.Besides the fact that "a man measures the all to your liking," as Socrates said, there is also an objective factor, which is a subjective judge - is Mind.It is because of Reason and may be closer to the truth.The guarantor of this approach is the same Daymonion (inner voice, conscience), having a divine origin and represents the divine spark in man.
can say that the Socratic method was embodied the very life of the philosopher.For him, again, unlike the Sophists, thinking is not arguments about the wisdom and love for her ("philo-sophia" in Greek).But this love is embodied in a flawless morally life.So the main thing in philosophy - not an ontology, and ethics, not space, but the man is not where it all happened, and how to live.Therefore, knowledge of Socrates is primarily ethical character.Sophists as a thinker thought were right that the knowledge in the field of ontology - this is just opinion.In this sense, you can safely say that the only knowledge is that in fact people do not know.
philosophical views of Socrates in the field of ethics and epistemology actually boiled down to one sentence - you need to know yourself.No wonder these words were carved over the entrance to the Temple of Apollo in the famous shrine of the ancient world - Delphi.Knowledge - is the process of finding the essence, finding universal characteristic of diverse things, the method of induction.But it is only applicable in the field of ethics and self-knowledge, because only such knowledge leads to self-improvement and development of virtues.The three most important and necessary for the human virtues - modesty, courage and justice.As a rationalist, Socrates believed that the knowledge of virtues in itself leads to them, because despite his selfishness, man by nature - the moral being and endowed with the overall objective of practical reason people is absolute (joint) benefit.
Socratic method is a kind of dialectic study of ethical issues.Versatile discussion, debate, where one or the other problem raised with different, even shocking and unexpected points of view, in the end, leads to the truth - the philosopher.When the interviewee sees the contradiction, he is moving in the direction of truth, if a child is born moves to come to light.And this truth begins with the definition of the concept.So for the first time in the history of philosophy, it was stated that if there is no clear definition - there is no knowledge.Since Socrates objective truth and knowledge exist only in the moral plane, he concluded that it is impossible to consider good and evil relative concepts - the difference between them is absolute.
However, most of his contemporaries did not understand the meaning of the teaching of Socrates.It is often confused with the Sophists (at least, so he ridiculed in his comedies of Aristophanes) as well as philosophers believe that a "gadfly" of Athenian democracy, and is often criticized (by the way, so that it is improved), he was chargedespionage, impiety and corrupting the youth.The result of the trial was the death sentence.Philosopher himself drank prepared for him the poison, said before he died: "Asclepius something I have to cock", bearing in mind that death is for him not to nothingness, and recovery and the transition to a better world (in ancient Greece it was the custom to bring the god of healing Asclepiusofferings for getting rid of the disease).He was a pupil of Socrates, Plato and Xenophon, and because of their work, we are generally known information about the life and thoughts of the philosopher - because he did not write down their ideas.
